Anthony Cianchetta is the man behind the new funny faces on the Syracuse Chiefs video board

Syracuse, N.Y. — An amusing variety of catchy songs and chirpy sound clips emanate from the small, windowless office of Anthony Cianchetta in the press box of NBT Bank Stadium.

Baseball is entertainment and Cianchetta is in charge of creating a constant sound track for the Syracuse Chiefs' season. Cianchetta and assistant Kevin Weinheimer dig through Youtube clips, music archives and other internet resources to find the right level of levity to accompany nearly every announcement and action.

One of the projects this week is to dress up the team's Bark in the Park Night on May 24, when fans are encouraged to bring their dogs to the Chiefs' game against Pawtucket.

Weinheimer is working on his idea to crop the heads of all the PawSox players onto the bodies of a mailman. Cianchetta is tackling the challenge of digging up some creative dog noises and songs beyond the predictable drone of offerings like "Who let the dogs out?''.

"There's a lot of goofy dog sounds out there,'' Cianchetta said.

The effort is the latest example of what Cianchetta can do when he's, um, unleashed.

That's the description used by new Syracuse general manager Jason Smorol as he recounts his instructions to Cianchetta at the start of the season.

Syracuse Chiefs director of multimedia production Anthony Cianchetta cooks up a wide range of creative graphics and sound effects in his office in the press box of NBT Bank Stadium.Mike Greenlar | MGreenlar@Syracuse.com

While Cianchetta has a long list of gameday responsibilities — coordinating hitters' walkup music, operating the scoreboard, running video replays — his most visible and anticipated work is how he ties the theme of the night to the display of lineup headshots.

"If someone were to ask, there's a backstory to almost everything,'' Cianchetta said. "We really dive deep and look for ties. It has to make sense to somebody.''

Cianchetta, 25, has worked for the Chiefs for a decade. He started out as a member of the park cleanup staff while in high school at Bishop Grimes, worked on the audio/control room crew and then dabbled in graphic design. He's held his current position for two seasons.

Smorol said he picked up feedback from fans before this season that they wanted to see the video board put to more imaginative use. Smorol said he asked Cianchetta if he was up to that challenge.

"He said yes,'' Smorol said. "So I said, 'You are unleashed my friend. Go to it.' I am amazed by the job he and his staff do up there. He works hard. He's smart and prepared.''

The guiding principle of Cianchetta's work is that no one in the stands will even get a chance to chuckle at it unless he and Weinheimer laugh at it first. They bounce photoshop ideas off each other, discarding those that fall flat and cooking up some that have promise.

"If it makes us laugh, it's going to make other people laugh. Typically it just comes from spitballing back and forth,'' Cianchetta said. "It's a bumpy road to get there. It's trial and error.''

Some ideas are obvious, like "dressing'' players in gruesome sweaters on Ugly Sweater Night or dropping a bad haircut on them for Mullet Night. On Easter, Cianchetta put the visiting Rochester Red Wings in pink bunny outfits.

Others are a little more nuanced. The pair thought that Syracuse infielder Emmanuel Burriss resembles Jar Jar Binks, so that was his avatar on Star War Night. Toledo slugger Mike Hessman was judged to be a death star of hitters, so that image represented him when he came to the plate.

Cianchetta interviews each player at the start of the season to get an idea of his personality and what characters most accurately reflect them.

"It's not random. We put a little thought into it,'' Cianchetta said.

It can take the pair at least 10-12 hours to crop the images of players from both lineups onto supporting graphics. Then comes the real test. Cianchetta doesn't truly know whether his sense of humor is shared by others until the images are flashed on the scoreboard for the first time.

"Then it turns into a little bit of anxiety. Are people going to read it the same way we read it when we put it together?'' Cianchetta said. "For the most part, everything seems to play out the way we put it together. The pro (of the job) is, you get to see the reaction of everybody firsthand who sees your work. The con is, you're the name that people can look up (on the team website) if you failed.''

Cianchetta said the lampooned players appreciate the tone of his work. He said he's seen them stop during warmups to look at the scoreboard when the lineups are flashed, and has been told the players debate among themselves whose re-worked photo looks best.

"I think they get a kick out of it too,'' Cianchetta said. "I have not heard one negative thing from one of our rather goofy endeavors. They do their job playing the game and we do our job entertaining the fans. Somehow, it fits well together.''

The reservoir of possibilities run as deep as the imagination of Cianchetta and the resources of the internet, neither of which looks to turn dry any time soon.

"The internet grows every day,'' Cianchetta said. "We'll never run out of stuff.''